About

Growing up in the small town of Dobele in Latvia, with no family background in classical music, the sisters discovered their gift almost by accident. They grew up singing rock’n’roll with their father and listening to The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Janet Jackson. As children, they staged impromptu “mini-concerts” for each other, and then for passers-by, busking in town squares, and at times earned more in a day than their father could in a month. The coins from the street funded their first big opportunities, with the family moving to Riga so that the sisters could study at a specialist music school, followed by Kristīne’s life-changing masterclass in London that resulted in securing a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

At just 17, Kristīne travelled to London alone where she kept busking, even memorising police patrol times so that the music could continue. Margarita later followed her sister to the UK, winning a full scholarship to study at the Purcell School of Music in Hertfordshire aged 15. Kristīne, who is just three years older than her sister, became her legal guardian at aged 18. The sisters studied together at the Royal Academy of Music in London. “We knew nobody” they recall, “but the UK gave us world-class teachers, friends from everywhere, and the belief that anything was possible.”

Kristīne completed military training in Latvia, and during the pandemic Margarita turned her passion for conducting into action, assembling an audition tape that won her a place on a course run by the Grammy-winning Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi’. One of today’s most sought-after conductors, Järvi’ later appointed Margarita as his assistant at the Tonhalle Zürich and she has since founded her own orchestra, Anonimi, in London, praised by The Arts Desk as “the latest voice in the dialogue about what the future of classical music might look like” (★★★★).

The Balanas Sisters have since lit up such prestigious stages as Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House and London’s Royal Albert Hall, Barbican, Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall. They have performed as soloists with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra.

Now they will release their first recording for Decca, Castillo Interior, a meditative and spiritual piece inspired by the writings of St Teresa of Ávila. It’s a journey of reflection and discovery that mirrors the sisters’ own path in music.